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Employee Engagement

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Employee engagement is the emotional commitment an employee shows for the organization and its goals (Kruse 2012). It can also be defined as the act of an employee being involved in, enthusiastic about and satisfied with his or her work (Seijts et al.., 2006). An engaged employee is one who actually cares and is passionate about his job and company goals. He or she does not work just to get a paycheck rather they work to ensure the organization’s goals are met. An engaged employee brings new ideas on how to run the job, is willing to train or mentor other employees without necessarily being asked. The ultimate result of engagement is an organization committed to achieving excellent results in terms of company profits, customer satisfaction and employee loyalty. These employees will record reduced sick days and absenteeism and have increased operational performances leading to the organization’s higher profit growth. When employees care and are engaged, they use discretionary effort. An example of this is when an IT technician will stay in late without being asked or an accountant filling in for front office personnel when they step out. Engagement is often headed by top rank leaders. An organization with aggressive leaders who encourage employees is likely to prosper as compared to one which has less engagement. As Ben Simonton (2013), testifies there is a positive effect of engagement to the organization and employees, “The times when I achieved a fully engaged workforce, I eschewed top-down and used the approach of meeting five basic needs of all people; to be heard, to be respected, to have competence, autonomy and purpose. It worked like a charm; productivity rose by over 300%, morale was sky high and most literally loved to come to work." Leaders have to come up with approaches that will encourage employee engagement for example, tasking leaders with becoming internal collaborators instead of being the bosses. This can get them closer to their employees so that their needs are not easily forgotten. Engaging employees has many consequences and impacts. Through engagement job satisfaction is achieved, the commitment to the organization is achieved and profits of the organization largely increase. Job Satisfaction Job satisfaction refers to a positive or pleasurable emotional state resulting from one’s own appraisal of the job or of one’s own work experience. Other researchers have viewed job satisfaction as the general attitude an employee has towards the job (Stamps, 1997). Certain factors will bring about job satisfaction for example, in an organization where employees get rewarded for their accomplishments. These rewards can either be tangible like bonuses at the end of an annual year or intrinsic. Intrinsic rewards come about when employees get opportunities to do meaningful work and positive feedbacks. Studies have shown that employees exhibit engagement if they believe that their work can provide worth or meaningfulness (Khan, 1990). Job satisfaction is a bit distinct from job involvement in that job involvement is psychological identification with a job while job satisfaction pertains to the emotional state of liking a job. According to Gallup Business Journal (2013), employ

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